


Checked Out

by Maximite



Category: Original Work
Genre: Creepy, Gen, Halloween, Horror, POV First Person, inspired by The Magnus Archives Statements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:35:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maximite/pseuds/Maximite
Summary: It calls to me and I must know.
Kudos: 3
Collections: Max's Haunted Palace 2020





	Checked Out

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on Prompt #26 for [Max's Haunted Palace](https://maximit3.tumblr.com/post/630620037660786688/maxs-palace-is-hosting-a-multi-fandom-october)

The day I found the library was a usual one. I had walked the same path everyday for years; the same path that led me to my office building in the middle of the city. I remembered that day I had stopped to get coffee. I hadn’t slept well the previous night, and I was fighting the urge to call in. My eyes would go in and out of focus, and I don’t exactly remember, but I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because I found myself in front of a building I did not know.

The building looked old and didn’t match the sprawling cityscape that consumed either side of it. Maybe that’s what piqued my interest. I remember feeling drawn to it, and I almost involuntarily took a step forward, and then another one. Before I knew it, I was at the base of the entrance staring at the cracked stairs before me that looked as if no one had climbed them in years. 

As I began to take another step, my phone rang, and I gasped in air as I felt myself resurface in the world. I answered the phone, turning away from the old building which called to me, and headed on my way to work.

It was a month before I found it again.

I had been walking back to work after lunch, a place situated only two blocks from my work building, and it felt like something had shifted around me. There was the building again: the same cracked stairs and the same decrepit facade.

You know, back then, I didn’t even question my curiosity at the building, but now I know I should have run far from it. Part of me knows it would have always ended the same way, but all I have left now are my hopes.

Even those are dimming.

I stood there stunned, taking in the building once more, but it was out of curiosity and not fear. I didn’t even consider how I had found it again; at the time, I just assumed I took a wrong turn, although I knew subconsciously how impossible that was. I tried to take my time this time, as I was pulled forward once more, and I noticed more details on the steps, swirls and script I didn’t recognize.

As I began to climb the steps, I could feel the tension in my body leaving me; I felt safe, like the building had been a long lost friend that was welcoming me home. I stood at the door once more, and I reached out to touch the smooth mahogany and found it warm to the touch. 

I knew — although I don’t know how — but I knew the building was looking at me just as much as I was looking at it. It felt the warmth of my heart, as I felt the warmth of its, and together we embraced the other’s spirit. 

There was a loud clang behind me and the hypnotic moment was broken. I jolted awake from my trance in confusion, staring in alarm at the building that had so much power over me. The fear crept in then as understanding of the sentient mind I had touched washed over me.

Finally I fled.

The next few weeks were…filled with a longing I had never known, and I found myself more and more curious about the building, and more afraid. My nights were filled with visions of corridors upon corridors filled on every side with stacks of books. People mingled through the stacks picking out books, but there was no light behind their eyes as they read. 

There was only hunger.

I didn’t leave my house if I could help it. I didn’t want to make a turn and find myself back at the building— no, I knew it now as the Library. I didn’t think I would be able to resist its pull again, and, seeing the hungry eyes of those people in my dreams... I don’t know what caused it, but I did not want to end up like them.

The longer I stayed inside, however, the stronger my curiosity grew; my mother always said it would be my downfall. I felt this gnawing in my brain to know, and I could feel myself itching to explore, to understand, to gain every ounce of knowledge I didn’t have. I began grabbing books wildly from my shelf in the living room and devouring the contents inside of them. Fiction, nonfiction, reality, or not; I devoured them all.

Soon, my thirst for knowledge could not be satiated, and I left to find the Library.

I found it rather quickly, as if it had been hungry for me just as much as I had for it, and I did not wait for it to pull me towards it this time. I bounded up the stairs and touched the door, once more feeling the warm embrace I had been longing for and listening to the whispers of promises in my ear. Promises of endless knowledge — of endless knowing — until I could know everything.

I guess giving this statement to you now can mean only one thing.

I am one with the building and the building is one with me. I hunger for the knowledge of ages past, ages present, and the ages to come. 

I suppose my secret is out.

I am the Librarian; I keep the Library fed.


End file.
